Witnesses Say Man Killed Dad

Father Reportedly Disliked Son's Friends

MATHEWS — Ralph Haywood was said to be fed up with the friends his 24-year-old son, Carlton Ray Haywood, had been bringing home to his trailer and partying with.

When some of those friends showed up Wednesday night, the father picked up a pair of pistols and decided to give the son a scare, said Sheriff Kenneth H. Jordan Jr.

As a result, the father is dead from a shotgun blast and the son is in jail, charged with first-degree murder.

Shortly after the friends arrived Wednesday night, the elder Haywood, a 53-year-old waterman and boat mechanic, grabbed the guns, marched over and started banging on the door of the son's trailer. The trailer sits on land owned by the father in Bavon, at the southern end of the county.

John Ward, one of the friends, was sitting in the trailer when Carlton Haywood stepped outside to talk with his father.

"I heard gunshots so I ran to the window," said Ward. The father was "shooting by Carlton's head about two or three inches away from his ears, with a pistol in each hand, and shooting at his feet.

"After the gunshots were over, they got to tussling and wrassling ... hugging and slugging like. Next thing I know, Mr. Haywood had his knife out and is jabbing Carlton in the side," Ward said.

"I'd say he got 10 or 12 or 14 puncture wounds. He was really messed up. I've never seen anybody still standing up - even in the movies - if they'd been stabbed that many times."

Another friend who was there, Gerald Taylor, said Carlton Haywood was "bleeding like a hog."

Ward said the son broke away and ran back into his trailer to grab a 12-gauge shotgun. Believing that the father was going back into his house to reload his pistols, the friends said, the son ran up to the father and fired the shotgun from point-blank range.

Ward said the son fired into the father's side but the sheriff said the slug entered the father's back. The nursing supervisor at Riverside Middle Peninsula Hospital, where the father was pronounced dead, said he was shot in the "right back."

The son's stab wounds were treated at the hospital, before he was questioned about the incident and confessed to having committed the shooting, Jordan said.

According to his friends, Carlton Haywood was acting in self-defense.

But Jordan said self-defense could be claimed only if the son had shot the father while he was being attacked.

The sheriff said the two pistols were found near the father's body. One of the pistols was cocked and had the safety unlatched and had one bullet in it and the other had two bullets remaining, he said. The shotgun was found about five feet from the body, he said. Jordan said the knife, believed to be a pocketknife, has not been found.

Carlton Haywood, who like his father is a waterman, is being held in the Middle Peninsula Regional Security Center in Saluda without bond, pending a hearing Wednesday in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

In addition to first-degree murder, he has been charged with using a gun in committing a murder and malicious shooting with intent to maim.

Jordan said he is concerned family members may try to exact revenge for Wednesday's slaying on Carlton Haywood's friends.

One of those relatives, Robert H. Haywood, who is either a nephew or cousin of Ralph Haywood, was charged Thursday with maiming Danny Manning, one of the friends who was at the trailer at the time of the shooting.